Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

“to confound Christ with His ministers, the law with its exponents? May not men preserve their hope of heaven and yet lead more endurable lives on earth?”

      “Ah, my child, beware, for this is the heresy of private judgment, which has already drawn down thousands into the pit. It is one of the most insidious errors in which the Spirit of evil has ever masqueraded; for it is based on the fallacy that we, blind creatures of a day, and ourselves in the meshes of sin, can penetrate the counsels of the Eternal, and test the balances of the heavenly Justice. I tremble to think into what an abyss your noblest impulses may fling you, if you abandon yourself to such illusions; and more especially if it pleases God to place in your hands a small measure of that authority of which He is the supreme repository.—When I took leave of you here nine years since,” Don Gervaso continued in a gentler tone, “we prayed together in the chapel; and I ask you, before setting out on your new life, to return there with me and lay your doubts and difficulties before Him who alone is able to still the stormy waves of the soul.”

      Odo, touched by the appeal, accompanied him to the chapel, and knelt on the steps whence his young spirit had once soared upward on the heavenly pleadings of the Mass. The chapel was as carefully tended as ever; and amid the comely appointments of the altar shone forth that Presence which speaks to men of an act of love perpetually renewed. But to Odo the voice was mute, the divinity wrapped in darkness; and he remembered reading in some Latin author that the ancient oracles had ceased to speak when their questioners lost faith in them. He knew not whether his own faith was lost; he felt only that it had put forth on a sea of difficulties across which he saw the light of no divine command.

      In this mood there was no more help to be obtained from Don Gervaso than from the Marquess. Odo’s last days at Donnaz were clouded by a sense of the deep estrangement between himself and that life of which the outward aspect was so curiously unchanged. His past seemed to look at him with unrecognizing eyes, to bar the door against his knock; and he rode away saddened by that sense of isolation which follows the first encounter with a forgotten self.

      At Ivrea the sight of Cantapresto and the travelling-carriage roused him as from a waking dream. Here, at his beck, were the genial realities of life, embodied, humorously enough, in the bustling figure which for so many years had played a kind of comic accompaniment to his experiences. Cantapresto was in a fever of expectation. To set forth on the road again, after nine years of well-fed monotony, and under conditions so favorable to his physical well-being, was to drink the wine of romance from a golden cup. Odo was at the age when the spirit lies as naturally open to variations of mood as a lake to the shifting of the breeze; and Cantapresto’s exuberant humor, and the novel details of his travelling equipment, had soon effaced the graver influences of Donnaz. Life stretched before him alluring and various as the open road; and his pulses danced to the tune of the postilion’s whip as the carriage rattled out of the gates.

      It was a bright morning and the plain lay beneath them like a planted garden, in all the flourish and verdure of June; but the roads being deep in mire, and unrepaired after the ravages of the winter, it was past noon before they reached the foot of the hills. Here matters were little better, for the highway was ploughed deep by the wheels of the numberless vans and coaches journeying from one town to another during the Whitsun holidays, so that even a young gentleman travelling post must resign himself to a plebeian rate of progression. Odo at first was too much pleased with the novelty of the scene to quarrel with any incidental annoyances; but as the afternoon wore on the way began to seem long, and he was just giving utterance to his impatience when Cantapresto, putting his head out of the window, announced in a tone of pious satisfaction that just ahead of them were a party of travellers in far worse case than themselves. Odo, leaning out, saw that, a dozen yards ahead, a modest chaise of antique pattern had in fact come to grief by the roadside. He called to his postilion to hurry forward, and they were soon abreast of the wreck, about which several people were grouped in anxious colloquy. Odo sprang out to offer his services; but as he alit he felt Cantapresto’s hand on his sleeve.

      “Cavaliere,” the soprano whispered, “these are plainly people of no condition, and we have yet a good seven miles to Vercelli, where all the inns will be crowded for the Whitsun fair. Believe me, it were better to go forward.”

      Odo advanced without heeding this admonition; but a moment later he had almost regretted his action; for in the centre of the group about the chaise stood the two persons whom, of all the world, he was at that moment least wishful of meeting.

      —————

VII.

      It was in fact Vivaldi who, putting aside the knot of idlers about the chaise, stepped forward at Odo’s approach. The philosopher’s countenance was perturbed, his travelling-coat spattered with mud, and his daughter, hooded and veiled, clung to him with an air of apprehension that smote Odo to the heart. He caught a blush of recognition beneath her veil; and as he drew near she raised a finger to her lip and faintly shook her head.

      The mute signal reassured him. “I see, sir,” said he, turning courteously to Vivaldi, “that you are in a bad plight, and I hope that I or my carriage may be of service to you.” He ventured a second glance at Fulvia, but she had turned aside and was inspecting the wheel of the chaise with an air of the most disheartening detachment.

      Vivaldi, who had returned Odo’s greeting without any sign of ill-will, bowed slightly and seemed to hesitate a moment. “Our plight, as you see,” he said, “is indeed a grave one; for the wheel has come off our carriage and my driver here tells me there is no smithy this side Vercelli, where it is imperative we should lie to-night. I hope, however,” he added, glancing down the road, “that with all the traffic now coming and going we may soon be overtaken by some vehicle that will carry us to our destination.”

      He spoke calmly, but it was plain some pressing fear underlay his composure, and the nature of the emergency was but too clear to Odo.

      “Will not my carriage serve you?” he hastily rejoined. “I am for Vercelli, and if you will honor me with your company we can go forward at once.”

      Fulvia, during this exchange of words, had affected to be engaged with the luggage, which lay in a heap beside the chaise; but at this point she lifted her head and shot a glance at her father from under her black travelling-hood.

      Vivaldi’s constraint increased. “This, sir,” said he, “is a handsome offer, and one for which I thank you; but I fear our presence may incommode you and the additional weight of our luggage perhaps delay your progress. I have little fear but some van or wagon will overtake us before nightfall; and should it chance otherwise,” he added with a touch of irresistible pedantry, “why, it behoves us to remember that we shall be none the worse off, since the sage is independent of circumstances.”

      Odo could hardly repress a smile. “Such philosophy, sir, is admirable in principle, but in practice hardly applicable to a lady unused to passing her nights in a rice-field. The region about here is notoriously unhealthy and you will surely not expose your daughter to the risk of remaining by the roadside or of finding a lodging in some peasant’s hut.”

      Vivaldi drew himself up. “My daughter,” said he, “has been trained to face graver emergencies with an equanimity I have no fear of putting to the touch—’the calm of a mind blest in the consciousness of its virtue’; and were it not that circumstances are somewhat pressing—” he broke off and glanced at Cantapresto, who was fidgeting about Odo’s carriage or talking in undertones with the driver of the chaise.

      “Come, sir,” said Odo urgently, “let my servants put your luggage up and we’ll continue this argument on the road.”

      Vivaldi again paused. “Sir,” he said at length, “will you first step aside with me a moment?” He led Odo a few paces down the road. “I make no pretence,” he went on when they were out of Cantapresto’s hearing, “of concealing from you that this offer comes very opportune to our needs, for it is urgent we should be out of Piedmont by to-morrow. But before accepting a seat in your carriage, I must tell you that you offer it to a proscribed man; since I have little reason to doubt that by this time the sbirri